Shakedowns in Texas?

Becca and I have had the mixed pleasure of living in Texas the last 2 years. Mixed as in we dealt with the good and the bad (and the creepy). Some of the good is that the weather is great(ish) - gotta love the heat! We also were fortunate enough to find ourselves in Austin, one of the only acceptable places for former Oregonians to live in this climate change denying, evolution should not be taught in school, women's reproductive rights denying, drill baby drill, Republican-drenched state.

The Cool

The Bad

The downright creepy

Austin is great (for a city) though.  There is a fantastic craft beer scene, there is a BYO pinball complex, the food can be amazing, its not a desert nor is it a swamp, there are climbing walls, and hiking and biking trails in the city limits, etc. Also, the people here are much more "normal" than the caricatures of Texans most people think about when forming mental punching bags. Sorry Austin, it is true, you are mostly normal based on my experience. Maybe it is just that I have lived a weirder than average existence and so weird is actually normal to me, but that "Keep Austin Weird" motto only works in the context of Texas, and true to the spirit of Texas it seems to be more of a mechanism for making money by selling T-shirts than a battle cry of the free-spirited.

But there is the bad too. For future AT thru-hikers, maybe the worst aspect is the ridiculously small amount of space that has been set aside as public lands. There may be an average number of parks for this state, but the individual parks tend to be tiny. And they lack publicized trails. Maybe I am spoiled by the the fact that about 50% of Oregon is BLM or Nat'l forest and that Missouri had the Mark Twain Nat'l Forest and the Ozark Highlands Trail to hike around in. With Becca working 6 days a week, it was difficult to find trails in and around Austin where one could hike more than 5 miles in any direction without having to turn back and camp at the designated campsites for $20 a night and still get back to town for the next work shift. I hear Big Bend is awesome, but its practically halfway back to Oregon from here.

So obviously this has made the process of going on shakedown hikes a little difficult. But we did find one spot. Its so nice and so not crowded I almost don't want to give away the location. Also, its free! What? In Texas? They are giving away something to the public? Yes that is right. The Goodwater Loop around Lake Georgetown is free to use. A nice little 27 mile loop around the lake with 3 designated campgrounds with primitive tent sites and no ability to park your car within about 2 miles at the closest.

Since November, we have gone to The Goodwater Loop Trail to get our practice hikes in and test our current gear set up. I think we have done around 120-150 miles of hiking out there. We've done the circuit CW and CCW, in and outs, and from different starting points too. We know that trail pretty well now. It only took us 3 times around the lake to get used to all the unmarked turns and side trails and find our favorite campsites.

But oh man is the Goodwater Loop flat. I recently saw a super rad cool beans analysis of the gradients of the US's 3 long distance trails. You can find that here:

http://www.guthookhikes.com/2015/02/slope-analysis-of-at-pct-cdt.html

Also, Sward will be joining us for
at least the start of the hike

The gist of it is that about 30% of the AT is spent going up a 5% or better grade. 30% of it is spent going down at least 5%. The other 40% is relatively flat. The Goodwater Loop on the other hand may be 0.1-1% not flat. Thats probably a generous estimate. So while our feet have been getting toughened up, our butts and quads are gonna be screaming once we get on those long ups and downs of
the Appalachians.

But all that climbing is gonna lead to some awesome views! For instance, I cannot wait to see Becca's hiking legs!

We have been up mountains, but 6 months of hiking...